Michael Kelly‘The Church in the North, far from occupying a position of prestige, was the subject of deep suspicion by the political elite’, writes Michael Kelly
Growing up North of the border, I was well aware that, while the Church was a single unit in Ireland, there were marked differences in the experience of Catholicism in the two parts of the island.
There’s no single explanation, and simplistic attempts at explaining the differences often fall short, but the differences are real.
I’m conscious that some southern Catholics experienced a form of Church control over their daily lives that was largely alien in the North. Looking back, the position of power and prestige that the Church occupied in the nascent Free State is breathtaking. And there is ample evidence that southern prelates – initially hostile towards partition – quickly began to warm to the idea when they saw the benefit of a 26-county State that would be overwhelmingly Catholic and where the Church was the only real infrastructure and centre of power.
This made the new State extremely dependent on the Church, and politicians, either devout Catholics or those who sought hierarchical approval, were eager to please Church leaders. There was, one might say, a cosy coalition between Church and State in the lofty project of building the world’s newest state as an idyll that would be Gaelic, Catholic and free.
Of course, it was a recipe for disaster. History proves that, when the Church lusts after political and secular power, the Gospel is soon relegated. I don’t need to rehearse here the litany of iniquity that has marred the history of the Church in 20th Century Ireland. As Pope Benedict XVI observed in 2009, Church failures “have obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing”.
And it was ever thus, since the Edict of Milan in 313AD gave the Church a position of prestige in society. This prestige – and the desire to maintain it – has often left the Church compromised when, in truth, the only thing the Church should be concerned about is its moral authority.
Civil rights
North of the border, meanwhile, Catholics were left in no doubt that they were outsiders. Stormont’s first prime minister, James Craig, had thundered that he was leading “a Protestant government for a Protestant people” – and Catholics knew it.
It was this sectarian government’s refusal to countenance even basic civil and political rights for northern Catholics and the brutal repression of the civil rights movement that lit the flame of the bloody sectarian conflict.
The Church’s minority position in the North, it seems to me, led to a healthier form of Catholicism. Church leaders in the North had to be exactly that: leaders of their people in troubled times. The Church in the North, far from occupying a position of prestige, was the subject of deep suspicion by the political elite.
Bishops and priests based in parishes in the North had very immediate pastoral concerns, like the dire living conditions of many of their people as a result of discrimination and, in time, a campaign of sectarian murder against their parishioners. This had, I believe, a profoundly sobering effect and led to a situation where pastors were – with some exceptions – closer to their people.
Of course, some will dismiss the differences as merely cultural. The civil conflict in the North, they will say, meant that Catholicism was as much about identity in the North as it was about faith. Undoubtedly, there is an element of truth to this, but it doesn’t tell the full story.
It seems to me that the Church’s misuse and abuse of power in the Republic turned the southern state into a hot-house of Catholicism which would inevitably lead to problems. Where the Church is not required to articulate in the public square why it teaches and believes what it does, the faith inevitably withers since it has felt no need for nourishment and therefore not been nourished. This leads to a certain arrogance in the Church where challenge is so rare. Catholics become unable to respond to even the friendliest of critiques.
Most Catholic
Much has changed – for good and for ill – since Msgr Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI) told Irish officials in 1946 “you are the most Catholic country in the world!” Ireland is currently in the grip of the same tide of secularism that is affecting most of the Western world, this is true North and South.
The Church has to find a language and a way of being the Church that is credible for modern society while not compromising on its essential mission and teachings. Pope Francis has opened up a positive new space, and many people who felt alienated from the Church are showing a fresh openness. The public relations manager of a well-known bookmakers was on the radio this week. When asked whom he most admired, he was immediate in his response: Pope Francis.
The Church in Ireland has to build on this positivity and show the curious why they should engage on the epic journey of faith.